Hello from Eastern Tennessee

[Trjtrjtrj]

Hello,
I'm new and I'd like to introduce myself. I'm a software guy in Knoxville, TN. I've loved stereo equipment since I heard a Threshold / Magnepan system at a stereo store as a teenager and realized that it's possible to have a really entertaining musical experience in your home. What a revelation that day was -- I still remember it vividly years later.

I've had my Magnepan 1.7s speakers and a Velodyne DD-12 subwoofer for years. I've just purchased two Mark Levinson 536 mono amps and an MSB Technology Diamond V DAC/Preamp.

I'm old school and I have a "physical" collection of music (mostly CDs, but also vinyl and some SACD). These are items I can touch, and read, and many times remember buying. I realize all the hipsters are streaming and CDs are becoming a dinosaur, but I'm just not a big music streamer even though I do have an account on Tidal (mainly to help learn about new music). I've ripped everything into my music NAS box (a custom linux build with a 50 TB raidset). The music collection occupys around 10 TB and over 150K tracks. I use Itunes to manage the library and Roon to play it (from smartphone, tablet, and laptop). Most tracks are 16bit/44Khz losslesss ALAC, and there's a fair amount of higher definition (e.g., 24bit/352.8K). I have almost no mp3s.

I'd describe my musical tastes as varied. I like most music, but my favorite artists are big on vocals and guitar: Big Head Todd, John Mayer, Lucinda Williams, Eric Clapton, Tedeschi Trucks Band, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Van Morrison, the Stones, and so on. I especially like nice live recordings and I have a fairly extensive collection of recordings from artists dropping by studios like KFOG and WFUV.

I guess I'm a cynic when it comes to some of the audio stuff I read. For instance, I think you can get low capacitance, low inductance, cables/interconnects fairly cheaply and they'll sound just as good as a gazillion dollar cable made from a unicorn's horn. On the other hand, I do appreciate good engineering and there are plenty of great examples of that in the audio world.

I'm looking forward to talking with you about my passion -- wonderfully rendered music.